Monday, October 24, 2011

The second month of DC's New 52 brought with it some relief to my nearly depleted wallet, but somehow I still managed to spend an exorbitant amount of money. It's as if I really like comics and continually manage to find new ones to spend all my hard earned cash on. Kind of a problem, really.

A pretty big drop for Marvel, relatively speaking, but that's okay, because I'm absolutely in love with Mystic. I've been singing the praises of this book to anyone who will listen to me, and while I think you all recognize that it doesn't always take that much for a comic to win me over, Mystic is on a whole other level. As I said over at The Weekly Crisis, I feel like this book is akin to a classic Disney movie: it's a children's story, but it is really smart and can be appreciated just as much by an adult reader. Once the last issue drops, I will definitely be foisting this upon people I know. So watch out for that people I know.

Despite not having to buy all of DC's books for review purpose, I managed to get four of their new series. While I was happy to do so for Animal Man, O.M.A.C., and Batwing, Action Comics was a big let down for the main reason that I paid $3.99 for 22 pages of story. I hate doing that, and the only book where I'm really comfortable doing so is Amazing Spider-Man. It was especially maddening because I didn't realize the back part of the book was filler until I turned the last story page. Argh.

You'll also notice that I picked up the All-Star Superman trade, which was long overdue, as I didn't actually own this fantastic series until this week. I'll have to read through it again in the near future, but for now it can sit on my bookshelf, waiting for me to find the time.

Sweet Tooth kicked off a new story arc that was completely different from the rest of the series up until this point. Jeff Lemire jumped almost a hundred years back in time, changed his writing style, and brought in a guest artist to really insist on how dramatic of a shift it was. It's still too early for me to really say if the move was a success or no, but I appreciate the lengths he went to metatextually to support his story.

Apart from All-Star Superman, it was really the other companies that did me in this time around. I couldn't resist Kate Beaton's Hark a Vagrant (though I didn't actually get my copy until October 5th), and I had ordered Roger Langridge's "The Show Must Go On" months before. The same is actually true of Snarked!, which was a super cute comic by Langridge that was very much in a vein similar to his work on The Muppets, which I also enjoyed.

The rest of those books are mostly old standbys of mine, so it's not too surprising that I couldn't say no to them. Chew was, as always, wonderful. Reed Gunther #5 was a pretty solid conclusion to the opening arc, but it might also be where I get off. Will have to see what the solicitation for Reed Gunther #6 is like, I guess. Severed isn't actually that old of a standby, but I'm too busy buying everything Scott Snyder does (with the exception of Swamp Thing, which didn't really grab me) to not pick it up. And finally, Skullkickers was hilariously great, which is exactly what I was expecting. Awesome.

With that, we're one step closer to catching up to my present-day comic buying habits. They're still in a bit of flux, but I think I'm making strides to reigning it in. At least sometimes.

Saturday, October 22, 2011

The fun adventure never ends! This time, we get to look at the books I picked up to close out September, and I gotta say, I was feeling particularly exhausted at this point. DC's New 52 had been going for too long and I'd been reading too many poor to middling books, so I was feeling rather burned out. The only thing that kept me going was the knowledge that it would soon be over and that I could complain about how terrible these books were to a wide audience.

Anyways, at least Marvel was kind to me this week, offering four different titles that I totally dig. Spider-Island madness continued with Amazing and Venom, both of which were wonderful. I've loved every moment of Brubaker and Samnee's Captian America & Bucky work. And while I've been back and forth about FF, the ninth issue was quite the treat, so that was a plus.

Severed was a treat. I'm really enjoying Snyder's slow build on this one. Duke Nukem is maybe one of the most ridiculous books I've had the pleasure of reading. It's perfectly in line with the tone of the book: hyperviolent, full of cuss words, and offensive as hell. Love it.

American Vampire, as always, was stellar, and I enjoyed Flash, although it wasn't quite as exciting as I had hoped it would be. Aquaman, All Star Western, and Justice League Dark had their moments, but none of them were good enough to get me back for a second issue. Everything else was a pretty big letdown.

Superman was way too wordy and boring to boot. Teen Titans had some early promise, but lacked any real sense of direction. Batman: The Dark Knight had bad art art, worse writing, and was like every other Batman story that's ever been told, except that this one was really cruddy. Blawkhawks was interesting, but didn't do enough to separate itself from the dozens of other books that came out that month. Green Lantern: New Guardians was almost interesting, except for the fact that there are three other Green Lantern books coming out at the same time. I, Vampire was just confusing. Savage Hawkman actually started really strong, but then ended with the main character "dying", which I can't abide. Fury of Firestorm was actually a huge disappointment, with none of the signature Gail Simone writing that I was looking forward to. And finally, Voodoo was terribly offensive, acting as a pathetic excuse to draw women in compromising positions.

Sigh.

Fortunately, next post will be October, where I was finally able to purchase only books that were worth a damn. Unfortunately, the restraint I was looking for didn't quite come with that returned freedom.

Thursday, October 20, 2011

We continue our whirlwind tour through my comic book buying habits by looking at week 3 of September. The DC Reboot was really in full swing at this point, and I was starting to get real tired of reading all these books. Seriously, way too many of them sucked or were straight up mediocre, which when you're reading 52 books, might as well be the same as sucking.

From Marvel, I totally dug Daredevil, which isn't any surprised, as Marcos Martin is just as amazing as Paolo Rivera on art, so the trade was pretty wonderful. Mark Waid's writing continues to blow me away as well. Nick Spencer and Emma Rios continued to do some fantastic things on Cloak and Dagger, although the second issue wasn't quite as tight as their first. Spider-Woman wasn't quite as exciting, acting as yet another instance to make me question whether I think Fred Van Lente is as great of a writer as I thought he was. Seriously, the guy absolutely killed it with his Taskmaster mini last year, but everything I've seen since this has been rather regular. Not bad, but not nearly as great as Taskmaster was. Could it have been a one time thing? Only time - and potentially me getting burned once or twice more - will tell.

The Astonishing Secret of Awesome Man was actually an illustrated children's book written by Michael Chabon, author of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, which is what got me on board. The story was really cute, though obviously far more appropriate for a child reader than for myself. It definitely made me want to share it with potential future children of mine. That or find a present child and give it to them. We'll see how that one plays out, I guess.

Game of Thrones was completely terrible.

Unfortunately, it wasn't nearly as terrible as most of DC's books for this week. I'll spare you most of my displeasure and focus on the books I actually liked for the moment. Scott Snyder's Batman was amazing, which is completely unsurprising considering his amazing run on Detective Comics. It's a bit lighter than Detective, which is nice change of pace. And Brian Azzarrello and Cliff Chiang did what I thought they would and created a great Wonder Woman comic. I can't wait to read the second issue.

I liked Blue Beetle, but looking back on it, I liked it less in retrospect than I initially thought I did. We'll see how issue 2 plays out. Supergirl wasn't bad, but it wasn't good enough to warrant buying a second issue. Unfortunately, the same can pretty much be said for almost every other issue that DC dropped this week. Well, DC Universe Presents just sucked.

Red Hood and the Outlaws fails for rebooting Starfire not even as a person, but a female object who only wants to have sex. Catwoman fails for a similar reason, in that is just had a ton of cheesecake shots of Selina throughout, climaxing (pun intended) with her fornicating with Batman on the final page. It was pretty terrible.

That being said, the absolute worst book of the week, and the entire month for DC, was Legion of Super Heroes. The entire "New 52" was supposed to be a big reboot to bring in new readers, which is all well and good, except for the fact that Legion was completely unreadable. It feels like it picked up in the middle of a storyline, and the entire thing was completely undecipherable. I came out of the issue wondering what the hell had just happened, but not at all caring. Sigh.

Anyways, the problem isn't that I didn't read any good comics (I read a bunch), the problem is that I read a bunch of terrible ones - and paid way too much to do it. We'll see that this didn't change much for the last week of September, but there could be an upswing in the near future.

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

As you can see below, the second week of September only got worse. While I was still buying an exorbitant number of DC Comics, my Marvel crop managed to balloon with a potent combination of series ending, beginning, and a glut of Spider-Man books.

The worst part about the sheer volume of Marvel titles is that they were all great. I'd be happily following Mystery Men and Criminal for the better part of the summer, and their finales lived up to the expectations created by those earlier issues. I've been a huge sucker for Spider-Island titles, but that is partly because they're all so damn good, and this week's crop was no exception. While this Spider-Girl mini hasn't grabbed me quite as strongly as the short-lived series from earlier this year, it's still a fine read. Ultimate Spider-Man was great, although I dropped the title due to the fact that they were charging $3.99 for 20 pages, which I just can't get behind. The only title I wasn't completely sold on was John Carter. As much as I love Roger Langridge, I just couldn't get into the story that he was adapting. That being said, Mark Waid's Daredevil has been, and continues to be, pure magic.

DC was a lot less rosy, to be certain. I bought way too much and way too few of those books were worth a damn. Of course, American Vampire, Scalped, and Unwritten, my Vertigo books of choice, were all amazing, but the same could not be said for the main DC books. I was rather partial to Batwoman and Demon Knight, and while Frankenstein didn't grab me quite as strongly as I would have expected, I was generally pleased with that book. The problem was everything else. Pretty much every other title DC came out with this week completely blew, which is still rather disappointing, although it is a relief to my wallet in the long run.

Special kudos must go to Legion Lost #1, which was the worst comic I read this week. I thought that it would be the worst comic of the relaunch, but the month was yet young and DC still had a lot of trash to release.

My purchases from the other companies were relatively satisfactory. Baltimore is signature Mignola, so I'll be there come hell or high water. I must confess to really enjoying Gladstone's, but I don't know if I can rationalize continuing to purchase the book when I'm buying so much else. I hate to say it, but I might be done with that one. As for that last title, The Man Who Grew His Beard is a fascinating collection of short comics from a single creator that I still haven't had time to read all the way through. To be honest, I picked it up based on title alone, as I've been meaning to write a story about beards for a long while (as evidenced by one of my earlier 1C100W entries). Still trying to find time for that one, too.

So this posting wasn't necessarily the creative entry I was hoping for when I said I'd be updating this site a bit more often, but it is nice to just put a straight summary of how my comic book reading was for a particular week. Look for another one of these soon. If luck holds, we'll eventually catch up to the present day and I'll have to find something else to write about. Or so goes the theory.

The Marvel purchases are within the realms of sanity, and I really dug all of those books. Like, really, really dug them. I was going to say which one was my favourite, but they all rank pretty well. Mystic has been a phenomenal series that I wish more people were reading, I've been enjoying Punisher like it's nobody's business, and Spider Island is one of the best events I've read. Ever.

The titles from the other companies are also pretty reasonable. Godzilla has been an alright romp, although I'm losing a bit of interest as it limps towards its finale. Morning Glories is fascinating, but if I'm going to continue buying it, I'll have to move to getting it in trade, because individual issues do virtually nothing to explain what's going on (frankly, I just read issue #13, and the answers still aren't really coming). Reed Gunther is one of the best children's comics coming out right now. And Atomic Robo is the best comic coming out right now.

The problem comes when you move to my DC list. For The Weekly Crisis, I figured I could read through every single one of the New 52 that came out in September, and this is one of the worst decisions I've taken in a while. Long story short, I read and reviewed all 52 of those titles, and there was only one that surprised me in a positive manner. There were a ton of books that disappointed me, but only O.M.A.C. turned out to be better than expected. And while I really like O.M.A.C., it was not worth looking at all those other awful books. Never again.

There's also the problem that buying those books wasn't too kind to my wallet. He's still a little upset by the whole thing.

It's hard to say at this point, and of course, the fault lies squarely on my shoulders. I've been a busy bee writing on a regular basis for thought balloons and The Weekly Crisis (the 52 Pick Up stuff for Septebmer was especially time consuming), but the biggest reason for my complete forsaking of this blog is the fact that I'm once again employed full-time. And getting into the groove of the new job has made balancing things a little challenging. Unfortunately, the aforementioned writing responsibilities had to take precedence (especially 52 Pick Up once again), since I was invited to join both of those sites, while the Thought Wrangler was mostly for me.

Anyways, long story short is that I'll hopefully be able to manage putting things up here with a bit more regularity in the coming weeks. It probably won't be the same frequency as what I was doing this summer, but it will definitely be more often than the never that I've been doing of late.

Since I know that there aren't all that many people who frequent this site (if any, at this point), one of my first orders of business will be to put up all of the Weekly Pull postings that I've skipped these past few weeks. I might add a bit of commentary, but in general it will be "ouch." I've been buying way too many comics of late, so hopefully adding this back into my routine will help me restrain myself a bit. But who knows?

Either way, I hope you'll excuse the mess as I try to get this site back in order.